Closed Senate Session Creates Cliffhanger for Public

Imagine you’re curled up on the couch watching “Inherit the Wind”--a very long version of “Inherit the Wind”--and just when it gets to the part where Spencer Tracy is about to make his big courtroom speech, the screen goes blank.

That is essentially what happened Tuesday in the U.S. Senate as the viewing public tuned in or lined up to hear lawmakers debate the future of President Clinton in Week 5 of his impeachment trial, only to have the cameras turned off and the chamber doors slammed shut at 1:52 p.m., just when it was getting to the good part.

“This stinks,” one man from Bakersfield grumbled as he marched into the Senate gallery with his pass in hand, soon to march out again as a motion to open the proceedings fizzled in defeat.

“They are going to run right outside and tell reporters what they said anyway,” Joanne Singer, a schoolteacher from Redlands, Calif., protested as she joined the long, grim-faced processional out of the gallery. “They are deciding his fate and we should be able to hear that. He’s our president.”

It was an equally frustrating experience for some senators, who have sat silently for more than a month as the trial has unfolded, relegated to passing notes when they have a question to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who has presided. Many of them had worked for hours on what they had hoped would be the floor speeches of their congressional careers, their turns to pontificate for the history books on the impeachment of the president.

But there would be no posturing, no politicking, no speech-making on television for the folks back home. The senators were destined by their own votes to deliver their historic remarks to each other and the white sculpted busts of past vice presidents that look down on the Senate chamber. Not even a Senate page was permitted to stay in the chamber. Only stenographers and other technical staff could witness the debate, and they were required to sign a sworn oath never to “divulge, publish, or reveal by writing, word, conduct or otherwise” what went on in that room.

“You can hear from Monica. You can hear from Vernon Jordan. You can hear from the 13 House managers, but you can’t hear from your own senator. It’s a great incongruity,” complained Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.).

“I feel deep regret that my constituents are excluded from this historic debate. I wish it were otherwise,” lamented Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). “The people also have a right and a need for closure on this matter.”

Not all senators were disappointed. The chamber, after all, had failed to muster the two-thirds vote necessary to open the deliberations, although a 59-41 majority wanted the public to witness what would transpire. This is not a prime-time trial. Recent polls show that Republicans are getting blamed for impeaching a popular president. And some lawmakers are undoubtedly grateful for the chance to express their true feelings without fear of voter retribution.

“The Republicans in particular are taking a lot of political heat for this so better to just be quiet about it,” a Democratic staff member said.

It is not unprecedented for the Senate to retreat in closed session. The last time was in April 1997, while debating the chemical weapons convention treaty. But nobody cared as much about chemical weapons as they do about the first presidential impeachment since 1868, which helped explain the scene that ensued in the hallways the first time senators took a bathroom break.

Sen. Herbert Kohl (D-Wis.) was among the first to be debriefed by reporters, who pressed for every detail--any detail--about what was actually going on in there. He shifted uncomfortably on his feet, painfully aware of Rule 29 that prohibits senators from divulging what goes on in closed session under threat of expulsion.

Kohl was asked to describe the session. He didn’t want to say. He was asked to name the first senator who spoke. He couldn’t remember. Reporters resorted in desperation to Twenty Questions:

“Did they go by seniority?”

“Was it a Republican?”

“Was it Ted Stevens of Alaska?”

“Was it Bob Byrd of West Virginia?”

“Was it bigger than a bread box?”

After 10 minutes, all they had learned was that the mood was “solemn.” When asked whether the ambience was different in closed session than it is in open, Kohl’s face brightened.

“Yes!” he said. “The lights are dimmer. It’s quieter. More intimate.”

This, apparently, is the advantage of closing the doors. The senators relate differently without millions of viewers and voters watching. Sen. Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said on the floor that previous private sessions had given way to an impromptu “round robin,” a free forum that the regimented Senate, which directs all remarks to the presiding officer, does not often enjoy.

“Almost uncontrollably, we wound up discussing and talking with each other,” Lott remembered fondly.

Then he warned those in the chamber: “Only those people properly authorized to be on the floor of the Senate should be there and the sergeant-at-arms will act accordingly.” That was everybody’s cue to exit.

As a sort of consolation prize, Lott permitted senators to submit their speeches to the Congressional Record so that any constituent so inclined could look them up. Sort of like reading the movie script but missing the performance.

It wasn’t much consolation.

“I don’t like this,” Richard Johnson of Salt Lake City said as he walked out the door. “Those usher guys act like the Gestapo. Is this America or what?”

After the session ended Tuesday evening, a few senators emerged with more vagaries that indicated that, even in closed session, the discourse was essentially more of the same. Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho) summed up the rhetoric like this: “I wouldn’t suggest that it’s soaring,” he said, then added diplomatically, “but it’s thoughtful.”

There could be one advantage to closing deliberations: Senators as a group are insufferable hams and the trial that much of America says it is sick of likely will end that much sooner with the cameras turned off.

“When they know they can be heard, then they start playing to the audience, they play to the voters,” one Democratic Senate aide said. “It gets political. It takes longer. Close the doors and this will be over a lot quicker.”